Thursday, August 04, 2016

"Choctaw Bill" Robinson

Excerpt from William "Choctaw Bill" Robinson by D. D. TidwellWilliam Robinson (1809 – 1898)“William Robinson was born in North Carolina January 11, 1809, the son of Wallace Robinson and his wife, Rebecca Bishop. Prior to his fifteenth birthday the family moved to Alabama. On April 16, 1828 he married Julia Lucinda Fulford in Marengo County, Alabama, and they had eight children, all born in Alabama except the last two. After the death of his first wife he married Irena Isabel Brent in Hinds County, Mississippi, on November 15, 1846. They had six children, one of whom (Rev. O. B. Robinson) was a Baptist minister.“About 1842 William Robinson moved to Louisiana and a son states that he owned 100 slaves about this time. In 1848 he moved to Rusk County, Texas, and by 1854 he was a resident of Johnson County. Soon after moving to Texas, William Robinson became a Baptist minister. Information as to his licensing and ordination is lacking although it may have been by the original Henderson Baptist Church. In 1851 he and Rev. Obadiah Dodson held a revival at Mount Enterprise and formed the Holly Springs Baptist Church.”* Holly Springs was at Pine Hill rather than Mt. Enterprise (though it may have shown up with a Mt. Enterprise address in some records). When we were at Burleson, we saw the Bethesda Baptist church building and cemetery. Bethesda was organized by Robinson in 1855. He is buried in Comanche County.